About the performance:I’m Not Sure How To Tell You is a performance of excerpts (spoken word/photography) from The Archive of K.Kalpana an ongoing archival project by Rashmi Munikempanna. The archive includes photography, poetry, sound, video and digital art that documents a year in the life of K.Kalpana as she explores what it means to be diagnosed with a mental illness.The archive is constructed as a way of politicising illness by addressing structural causes while dismantling the disciplining by the psychiatric hospital of the gendered queer body marked by class and caste. It is constructed as being in conversation with the Mental Healthcare Act 2017. The archive can be accessed here: https://kkalpana.home.blog/

About the performer: Rashmi Munikempanna has been engaged with an image based practice as an artist, activist, researcher over the past decade exploring issues of representation using intersectional feminist methodologies. She was the recipient of the Sarai-CSDS City as Studio fellowship 2011-12. Over the past few years she has been documenting the farmers’ movement (photography, writing, research). She has also been involved in translating from Kannada to English the work of writers/activists such as Devanoora Mahadeva and Prof MD Nanjundaswamy. She lives and works in Mysore and Bangalore.

About the discussion: The discussion following Rashmi’s performance will be led by Shruti Ravi and will focus on the salient features of the Mental Health Care Act, 2017, how it came into being and why there was a need to introduce this piece of legislation. We will look at some of the critiques that activists and scholars have presented so far about the existing law. In talking about these points, the attempt will be to touch upon gaps in the current law and what this might mean from a non-legal framework.”

About the speaker: Shruti Ravi works at White Swan Mental Health Foundation where her role involves preparing content focusing on mental health awareness, for the general public to make an informed choice when it comes to mental health issues.